“It wears you down and you start to believe the insults. It takes so much longer to heal.”
“Her only recourse for the incessant attacks – including watching her young children chanting “Mummy’s a f—ing cow! Moo”, mimicking their father – was to pack up and leave. “I could put up with it when it was just aimed at me”, she explained. “But once our boys started witnessing it, that was the turning point. If I stayed they too would become abusive men. One generation is enough”.